Sunday, November 18, 2007

The loss of the league leading rusher (AP for those who are only reasonable intelligent) proved to be less of a blow than people thought with the 202 total yard output by Chester Taylor in today’s win vs. the Oakland Raiders. Maybe the notion that this is a two-back league is true. Chester was a 1200-yard rusher last year but has been all but forgotten with the arrival of a dynamic rookie.It should be noted that the Oakland defense is very bad, especially the rushing defense. I was led to believe that Oakland had the worst run defense in the league...I was wrong. I have no idea where I heard this but it’s probably from an uninformed roommate or an ignorant talk radio host. Either way, they are actually the fourth worst run defense in the NFL. They give up a 144 rushing yards a game and Chester’s 164-yard day is not going to help.

Chester’s monster re-coming out party was another nice individual performance to watch in a lost season. The Vikings are 4-6, exactly where they were last year. Nothing has really changed. A few new faces but the same old inconsistency. The last four weeks have been confusing. A horrible loss against a winnable Philly team at home, a better win in the last five years against San Diego, one of the worse losses in franchise history against Green Bay and now a convincing win against a poor Oakland team. Convincing is probably the wrong word but did you ever think we were going to lose that game? Even though the Raiders had the ball for a chance to tie the game in the final minutes I never thought we’d lose. That’s saying a lot since I think we could blow almost every game we play. It’s the Minnesota football in me. The Vikings and Gophers have burned us way too much. But, for some reason this win seemed like ours from the first drive.

Speaking of...

Can we just move Sidney Rice to our #1A quarterback position? Meaning we should give him anywhere from 5-10 reps at the QB slot. I don’t think I’m kidding. After almost two years we finally saw a glimpse of Brad Childress’s kick ass offense. A double reverse receiver pass from Sidney Rice for 79 yards to Visanthe Shiancoe on the very first play. For a minute I thought I was playing Madden football on my Playstation. I was waiting for Shiancoe to do a humanly impossible left juke with Pat Summerall slurring the play-by-play. I seriously have no idea where this came from. Wherever it came from I don’t care because it was kick ass.

It always makes for a nice little Sunday when the Vikings win. We’ve only had four of them this year so we cherish these little moments. But, a realist should know that this doesn’t mean anything. I’m a realist (at least I think I am). If they come out flat against the Giants next week nothing has changed. The system will still seem flawed. I fully expect us to lose at the Meadowlands next week...big. They are in dogfight for a division title and we’re secretly rooting for losses for a higher draft pick. Sorry, it’s the way the season has gone. The Vikings have six games left that are all winnable games I might add. If they can somehow get to eight wins this season it won’t be a complete wash. Eight wins with a revolving door of poop at the quarterback position is motivation for next year.

I can only imagine where we’d be with a guy like Jeff Garcia. I know-I know, I’ve already brought this up numerous times but I’m not letting this organization off the hook for a piss poor back-up plan if T-Jack happened to suck. A proven free agent quarterback that was extremely available this off-season like Garcia couldn’t hurt. We’ve lost a few games simply because our quarterback. And we’ve won none simply because of our quarterback. T-Jack looked all right today and needs to play every single game until the end of the year to finally prove to the coaches that he stinks. Once he does, we can finally move on. Us educated fans already knew this coming into the season but the professional coaches need some more time. Naturally.

So we’ll enjoy this win this week only to get our doors blown out next week. That’s what we do. Maryland might do crab cakes and football but Minnesota does walleye and shaky play football. I think we got them beat. Anyways, T-Jack can’t look all right two games in a row can he? Well...maybe...nah...nevermind. Enjoy this week Viking faithful because that kick ass offense just used up every ounce it had today...